


Your Way Of Living

by Dojh167



Series: Polyverse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breakup, Community: HPFT, Companion Piece, F/F, Hogwarts Era, New Beginnings, One Shot, hopeless idealism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dojh167/pseuds/Dojh167
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div>
  <p>Companion piece to <em>When I Go Out With You</em></p>
  <p>- A Susan Bones Story -</p>
  <div></div>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	Your Way Of Living

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
>  _Originally posted on HPFF on 8/18/15_   
> 

“Fuck me,” Susan whispers as she stares out the window of the empty Transfiguration classroom. Rain sloshes down the glass as if streaming half-heartedly from a broken faucet. The door creaks open behind Susan and she spins around, the fire rising in her tear-stained eyes.

“I wasn’t talking to you – ” she starts, preparing to rebuke whatever perverted student may have overheard her.

But it is not Terry at the door, not Christian, not even Warrington. It is a girl. A Ravenclaw girl with straggly blonde hair that seems to float off her shoulders, just as the girl herself seems to float in the doorway, somehow not fully grounded in the world around her.

“Oh,” Susan says, taken aback. “I didn’t realize… hello.”

“Hello,” the girl replies, an unaffected smile on her lips.

Susan averts her eyes, embarrassed. She can’t hide that she’s been crying.

“I was just heading up from dinner when I heard you in here.” The Ravenclaw does not ask for more information, does not put a hint of pressure in the tone of her voice. And yet in that distant bright face there is an invitation. An invitation to share, or to not, and a compassionate understanding of either choice.

Susan sighs and slides up to sit on one of the desks. “I’m Susan,” she offers. “I’ve seen you around, I think…”

“I’m Luna. I’m odd.”

Susan chokes back a laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at you –”

“Don’t be sorry,” Luna says, crossing the classroom to Susan’s side. “Your face needed that laugh.”

Susan’s eyes darken, as if suddenly reminded of her situation. Luna takes this shift in, tilting her head to the left.

“I’m a mess,” Susan responds to the unspoken question. “No really, I am. But I’m sure you hear about that enough in your common room.”

“No,” Luna says simply.

Susan furrows her brow, uncertain which of her statements the girl was denying. She shakes her downcast head. “Why can’t I just be content with what everyone else is?” Luna says nothing, and so Susan presses on. “Padma is lovely. Padma is beautiful. Padma loves me. I love Padma.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Luna murmurs, her voice a graded wash of curiosity and admiration, tinted with an innocent craving.

“Yeah, well, it’s supposed to be,” Susan snaps. “It’s enough to keep everyone else happy, but not me. I’m too fucked up to even sit still.”

Luna’s hand closes around Susan’s forearm, surprisingly cold to the touch. Susan involuntarily takes a sharp intake of breath, her eyes magnetically drawn to the younger girls’.

“You are not fucked up,” Luna says steadfastly, the expletive seeming strange coming from her unblemished lips. “You feel those things for Padma, right? The beauty and the love?”

Susan nods, her eyes swollen with the turbulence of her tears.

“Those things are real, and they are coming from your heart. Nothing is wrong with that.”

“Yeah, but I can’t… They all say everything else is supposed to melt away and I’m just supposed to see her. But I can’t. I see everything. The entire world is so alive and miraculous and beautiful. I can’t be in love with just one part of it!”

Luna smiles, her face brightening to fill the room with a cool, quiet comfort. “Beautifully spoken.”

“But it’s not!” Susan cries, “Padma thinks it means I don’t love her, and I’m here crying alone, and everyone else seems to be hard wired with rules of love and relationships that don’t make one bit of sense to me.”

“Susan,” Luna says, calming her with her voice. “You don’t have to make sense of anybody else’s feelings or rules. You just have to know what yours are.”

Susan stands still, held in a moment of suspension amidst her emotional frenzy. She stares at the strange girl before her as if she had just states the world was inside out. “I wish it could be that simple…”

“It is that simple,” Luna insists. “All you can know is what you feel. And it sounds like you have some pretty amazing feelings in there.”

Susan doesn’t move. She is completely still, only her eyes showing any sign of life, as they trace the path of Luna’s words and catch up with her brain. Luna does not seem to mind the silence, and simply smiles in stationary patience.

“Wow.” Susan breaks out of her reverie, her eyes wandering back to the gentle structure of the face before her. She can’t help but smile at that face. “Your way of living… is kind of beautiful.”

Luna shakes her head. “Living is kind of beautiful."

"Period?" Susan asks with a laugh, as if anything could be that simple.

Luna's smile says it can.


End file.
